SB-Sujon, Lalmonirhat Correspondent :
Farmers have blocked roads and formed human chains by throwing potatoes on the highway to protest the rent hike for 9 cold storages in Lalmonirhat.
They formed a human chain for about two hours by throwing potatoes on the highway adjacent to Mahendranagar Bazar in Sadar Upazila at 11:30 am today, Saturday (March 1). At that time, hundreds of vehicles were stuck on both sides of the Lalmonirhat-Rangpur highway, causing traffic jams.
Last year, the cost of storing a 60-kg sack of potatoes in a cold storage was Tk 350. But this year, the cold storage authorities have fixed the cost of a sack of potatoes at Tk 480 without any announcement, leaving marginal farmers disoriented.
Former Upazila Parishad Vice Chairman Mohiuddin Ahmed Limon, farmer representative Nurnabi Mostafa, Sawar Sarkar Lincoln, Jahangir Alam, A. Samad, Azizul Haque, Belayet Hossain and Faisal Hossain and others spoke at the human chain organized to demand cancellation of the additional rent for cold storage for potato storage.
The farmer and business representatives in the human chain said that the cost of potato production has increased several times in the current season. This time, the price of potato seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides has become much higher than before. On top of that, the increase in cold storage rent has made it almost impossible for farmers to store potatoes. The price of potatoes is already low, and on top of that, the cold storage rent has been increased irrationally, putting farmers in a crisis. This will cause serious losses to marginal farmers.
Which will have an impact on the entire economy. Increasing the rent is a direct conspiracy against farmers. If the announcement of the rent increase is not withdrawn immediately, then the general farmers said that a bigger movement will be called.
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